The noise of engines. People. So many people. Too many people. Cars she had seen in childhood or from afar on the dirt road in Cloraine. They were close. Too close. There were many of them, and they were honking. The sun blinded her eyes. A ringing filled her ears. The girl clutched her head. Her legs carried her forward as people walking toward her pushed past. One step onto the road and more horns. Angela recoiled, looked around, and walked again, but in another direction.

  “Where is the house? Where is my home?” spun through her mind.

  The phones at the Derry station did not stop ringing. All forces were deployed to search for the missing girl. Police were combing the city. In Cloraine, the local sheriff had stationed his men at checkpoints. Shane did not rule out the possibility that the girl had been abducted, but everyone hoped she had left on her own. Fay O’Keefe questioned the hospital staff, but no one noticed when or how Angela left the ward. Doctors and nurses were in shock and could not understand how Angela had managed to leave the hospital grounds unnoticed.

  Orla Leary insisted on informing the press, but Shane forbade it. The last thing they needed was journalists broadcasting the case across the city.

  “Are you really telling me that you, a psychologist, do not understand what that would do to her? The poor girl has barely seen real cars in her life, and now cameras would swarm her. I cannot take that risk. My task is to get her to speak, not to provoke a psychological crisis. My people will find her, I am sure of it. She could not have gone far from the hospital.”

  Gallagher burst into the office.

  “Two helicopters are in the air,” he said, sitting down at the computer. His fingers struck the keys at lightning speed.

  “What are you doing?” Shane asked.

  “Writing a notice. I’ll send it to police departments outside the city, just in case.”

  “You think she could go that far?”

  “Didn’t you suggest yourself that she might have been abducted?”

  “I suggested it, Evan. I am not stating it as fact.”

  “Precautionary measures won’t hurt.”

  For a while, O’Halloran paced the station waiting for news. Then he left Gallagher in charge, got into his car, and drove off to search for Angela. There was no point sitting idle. She had to be found.

  All the way, he tried to imagine where a girl frightened by the noise of the city would go. His first thought was that she would hide. A person who had lived ten years in a dark cellar would want shelter from the city’s chaos. Even Shane could hear the hum, the rattling, the shouts, and the unimaginable roar of voices, despite his car windows being tightly shut. What could be said of the poor girl, accustomed to absolute natural silence?

  Passing the public library on Foyle Street, he turned onto Shipquay Street and headed toward the Diamond roundabout. A message came through the radio, and he immediately grabbed it.

  “Chief Inspector O’Halloran on the line. Repeat. Over.”

  “I think we have spotted her. St. Augustine’s Church…”

  “I’m on my way. Over.”

  Throwing the radio onto the passenger seat, Shane spun the wheel and sped down Palace Street toward the church, wondering how she had managed to get there and which routes she had taken. Perhaps the sound of the bells had drawn her. But there was no church in Cloraine. How would she know what that was? Shane shook his head. A Bible had been found in the cellar, and the cottage owners had been religious fanatics. Perhaps the girl had attended church as a child or often watched what happened by the lake.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Lost in thought, the inspector reached the site but did not see her anywhere. He contacted the helicopter officer again.

  “I don’t see her. Over.”

  “We have eyes on her, Detective. She’s moving along the eastern side…”

  Shane did not let him finish, tossed the radio aside, and drove forward.

  At first, he saw no one. Then a dark-haired girl appeared on the roadside near the church gates. Shane leaned forward, his chest nearly touching the steering wheel. He slowed down and rolled along behind her, but quickly realized she was not Angela. She walked confidently and straight ahead, a handbag hanging from her shoulder. Where would Angela get a handbag? Then he saw her face, and his last hope dissolved into the air.

  For the next two hours, he drove around the city, scrutinizing every young woman with long hair and clothing that looked like pajamas. The nurse who had been caring for Angela said the girl had left her slippers in the room. Shane was certain Angela had gone barefoot. She was used to feeling the ground with her bare feet.

  He made loop after loop. When he was misdirected twice more, anger set in.

  “That’s not her, not her, not her!” he shouted in fury.

  It was starting to get dark when the inspector received a call from a patrol officer. He had decided to call the detective personally.

  “I’m not sure, sir, but I overheard a conversation between some young women,” the officer said. “They were laughing and talking about a strange person in a hospital gown. I approached them and asked for a description. They said she looked like she had escaped from a hospital. Disheveled hair, no shoes, darting from side to side.”

  “Where is she?”

  “I didn’t see her myself. I sent officers to search the shopping center area. The girls said she was wandering nearby.”

  Shane confirmed the address and drove to the shopping center.

  No shoes.

  This time, it was not a mistake.

  The parking lot in front of the mall was packed with cars. Shane showed his badge and left his vehicle by the road. Contacting the patrol officer again, he asked if they had found her. The answer was no. The search was still unsuccessful.

  Shane looked up and decided she definitely would not go inside. The large sign would frighten her, and the automatic doors probably would as well. He was losing time walking around the building. Angela could have gone in any direction or…

  Or hidden.

  Nearby, a sanitation worker was emptying the mall’s dumpsters. O’Halloran headed toward him. First, he showed his badge, then asked,

  “Are there places here where someone could hide?”

  The worker blinked, puzzled.

  “Please, think carefully. You know this place better than any police officer.”

  “Well, it’s all open here…” He paused again. “Unless someone crawls through the archway and hides between the trash bags in the service courtyard.”

  That was enough.

  “Where’s the archway?” Shane asked, already running. The worker pointed, and the detective sprinted in that direction so fast the wind stung his cheeks.

  To hide. Like in the cellar.

  Ducking into the archway, Shane did not hesitate to call out her name. He moved forward. The service courtyard was essentially a corridor formed by walls and thick square columns. Trash bags stood in different corners. Shane’s footsteps echoed. There was no one else there.

  “Angela. Angela, if you can hear me… it’s me, Detective Shane O’Halloran. I…” He stopped, breathless from running. “Angela, I’ll take you home,” he added softly on the exhale.

  The echo carried his words throughout the courtyard.

  He waited a little longer. No one came out. He moved forward, looking behind the columns, but she was not there either. The man closed his eyes and swallowed the lump of despair, realizing he had thought wrongly. Angela was gone. Gone again, and finding her would be difficult.

  Reaching a dead end, he was about to turn back when he saw her.

  Angela was sitting curled up between two large black bags, hugging her knees and trembling all over. Had she heard him? Judging by what she did next, there was only one conclusion. She had not heard him.

  She lifted her frightened, wide eyes, froze for a second, then sprang up as if on a coil and threw herself into his arms.

  Shane froze.

  Fragile arms wrapped around his broad waist. Her head pressed against his chest. He stood motionless, holding his hands away from his body, unable to respond. When it finally reached him that she had been found, that the fear was over, he touched her back at last and, closing his eyes, whispered,

  “I’ll take you home.”

  Angela pressed herself even tighter against him. Sobs followed.

  She was crying.